A major landmark was attained in 1953 when American geneticist and biophysicist James D. Watson and British biophysicists Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins devised a double helix model for DNA structure. This model showed that DNA was capable of self-replication by separating its complementary strands and using them as templates for the synthesis of new DNA molecules. Each of the intertwined strands of DNA was proposed to be a chain of chemical groups called nucleotides, of which there were known to be four types. Because proteins are strings of amino acids, it was proposed that a specific nucleotide sequence of DNA could contain a code for an amino acid sequence and hence protein structure. In 1955 American molecular biologist Seymour Benzer, extending earlier studies in Drosophila, showed that the mutant sites within a gene could be mapped in relation to each other. His linear map indicated that the gene itself is a linear structure.

In 1958 the strand-separation method for DNA replication (called the semiconservative method) was demonstrated experimentally for the first time by American molecular biologist Matthew Meselson and American geneticist Franklin W. Stahl. In 1961 Crick and South African biologist Sydney Brenner showed that the genetic code must be read in triplets of nucleotides, called codons. American geneticist Charles Yanofsky showed that the positions of mutant sites within a gene matched perfectly the positions of altered amino acids in the amino acid sequence of the corresponding protein. In 1966 the complete genetic code of all 64 possible triplet coding units (codons), and the specific amino acids they code for, was deduced by American biochemists Marshall Nirenberg and Har Gobind Khorana. Subsequent studies in many organisms showed that the double helical structure of DNA, the mode of its replication, and the genetic code are the same in virtually all organisms, including plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and viruses. In 1961 French biologist François Jacob and French biochemist Jacques Monod established the prototypical model for gene regulation by showing that bacterial genes can be turned on (initiating transcription into RNA and protein synthesis) and off through the binding action of regulatory proteins to a region just upstream of the coding region of the gene.

Technical advances have played an important role in the advance of genetic understanding. In 1970 American microbiologistsDaniel Nathans and Hamilton Othanel Smith discovered a specialized class of enzymes (called restriction enzymes) that cut DNA at specific nucleotide target sequences. That discovery allowed American biochemist Paul Berg in 1972 to make the first artificial recombinant DNA molecule by isolating DNA molecules from different sources, cutting them, and joining them together in a test tube. These advances allowed individual genes to be cloned (amplified to a high copy number) by splicing them into self-replicating DNA molecules, such as plasmids (extragenomic circular DNA elements) or viruses, and inserting these into living bacterial cells. From these methodologies arose the field of recombinant DNA technology that presently dominates molecular genetics. In 1977 two different methods were invented for determining the nucleotide sequence of DNA: one by American molecular biologists Allan Maxam and Walter Gilbert and the other by English biochemist Fred Sanger. Such technologies made it possible to examine the structure of genes directly by nucleotide sequencing, resulting in the confirmation of many of the inferences about genes originally made indirectly.

In the 1970s Canadian biochemist Michael Smith revolutionized the art of redesigning genes by devising a method for inducing specifically tailored mutations at defined sites within a gene, creating a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis. In 1983 American biochemist Kary B. Mullis invented the polymerase chain reaction, a method for rapidly detecting and amplifying a specific DNA sequence without cloning it. In the last decade of the 20th century, progress in recombinant DNA technology and in the development of automated sequencing machines led to the elucidation of complete DNA sequences of several viruses, bacteria, plants, and animals. In 2001 the complete sequence of human DNA, approximately three billion nucleotide pairs, was made public.

Time line of important milestones in the history of genetics

A time line of important milestones in the history of genetics is provided in the table.

Time line of important milestones in the history of genetics

year

event

1866

Austrian botanist Gregor Mendel published the results of his experiments with pea plants. His work later provided the mathematical foundation of the science of genetics.

1869

Swiss biochemist Johann Friedrich Miescher became the first to isolate nuclein—now known as DNA. Although he developed hypotheses explaining the role of nuclein in heredity, he ultimately concluded that one molecule alone could not provide the level of variation observed in nature within and between species.

English bacteriologist Frederick Griffith conducted experiments suggesting that bacteria are capable of transferring genetic information and that such transformation is heritable.

1931

American scientists Harriet B. Creighton and Barbara McClintock published a paper demonstrating that new allelic combinations of linked genes are correlated with physically exchanged chromosome parts. Their findings suggested that chromosomes form the basis of genetics.

1944

Canadian-born American bacteriologist Oswald Avery and American biologists Maclyn McCarty and Colin MacLeod reported that the transforming substance—the genetic material of the cell—was DNA.

1950

Austrian-born American biochemist Erwin Chargaff discovered that the components of DNA are paired in a 1:1 ratio. Thus, the amount of adenine (A) is always equal to thymine (T), and the amount of guanine (G) is always equal to cytosine (C).

Using Chargaff’s data and the X-ray images recorded by Franklin, Wilkins, and Gosling, British biophysicists James Watson and Francis Crick determined the molecular structure of DNA. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discovery.

1960s

Swiss microbiologist Werner Arber and American microbiologists Hamilton Othanel Smith and Daniel Nathans discovered restriction enzymes, which cleave DNA into fragments. The discovery, for which the three men shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, enabled scientists to manipulate genes by removing and inserting DNA sequences.

1970s

American molecular biologists Allan M. Maxam and Walter Gilbert and English biochemist Frederick Sanger developed some of the first techniques for DNA sequencing. Gilbert and Sanger shared the 1980 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work.

1983

American biochemist Kary B. Mullis invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a simple technique that allows a specific stretch of DNA to be copied billions of times in a few hours. Mullis received the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his invention.

1990

The Human Genome Project (HGP) began. By the time of its completion in 2003, HGP researchers had successfully determined, stored, and rendered publicly available the sequences of almost all the genetic content of the human genome.

2002

The International HapMap Project, which was designed to identify genetic variations contributing to human disease through the development of a haplotype (haploid genotype map of the human genome), began. By completion of Phase II of the project in 2007, scientists had data on some 3.1 million variations in the human genome.

2008

The 1000 Genomes Project, an international collaboration in which researchers aimed to sequence the genomes of a large number of people from different ethnic groups worldwide with the intent of creating a catalog of genetic variations, began. The project was scheduled for completion in 2012.

Areas of study

Classical genetics

Classical genetics, which remains the foundation for all other areas in genetics, is concerned primarily with the method by which genetic traits—classified as dominant (always expressed), recessive (subordinate to a dominant trait), intermediate (partially expressed), or polygenic (due to multiple genes)—are transmitted in plants and animals. These traits may be sex-linked (resulting from the action of a gene on the sex, or X, chromosome) or autosomal (resulting from the action of a gene on a chromosome other than a sex chromosome). Classical genetics began with Mendel’s study of inheritance in garden peas and continues with studies of inheritance in many different plants and animals. Today a prime reason for performing classical genetics is for gene discovery—the finding and assembling of a set of genes that affects a biological property of interest.

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